Temperature-sensitive products such as pharmaceutical products, blood products, and other biological products are usually required to be maintained in a specific temperature range during transportation and distribution. These products are most often regulated by agencies such as the FDA and need to be kept in a specific temperature range during the entire distribution process. Generally, these products are shipped by air and require a special unit load device (ULD) or complex insulated packages to thermally protect them. Special aircraft containers are insulated and provide refrigeration by means of dry ice or other mechanical devices, that maintain proper temperature in a specified range. However, during ramp transfers, before or after a flight, products transported in and/or on these special ULDs can be exposed to the outside environment for several hours without any added protection and, as a result, can occasionally suffer from temperature abuses (hot or cold).
Air transportation is very expensive and can sometimes provide poor results. The other alternative modes to air transportation are ground and sea. Ground transportation is currently used for inland distribution, but still suffers from poor temperature maintenance as well as poor air distribution. These deficiencies are mainly due to poor air circulation and minimal wall insulation. Sea transportation is not currently used for highly temperature sensitive products, such as pharmaceutical products. This is primarily due to the considerably long amount of time that the sea container is unmonitored and also due the fact that poor thermal protection is offered when the refrigeration unit is not running (in case of a failure of the refrigeration unit or when the refrigeration unit is unplugged for loading/unloading to/from a ship). A lack of refrigeration can be detrimental to the temperature inside a container, which can permanently damage the products. Another problem related to sea transportation is the lack of visibility of the load for many days or weeks. The lack of visibility can disable the shipper's ability to assure the security and the localization of the load, as well as reduce the shipper's ability to proactively alarm the transportation company of any malfunctions of the refrigeration unit.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for protecting temperature sensitive products during air, ground, or sea transportation.